More second screen: Shazam partners with American Idol

Shazam's live tagging allows American Idol viewers to save song, unlock exclusive content

For all of those that watch the singing competitions and end up with a long list of songs that they need to remember to download later, Shazam is working on making that an even easier process.  The music tagging and identifying app for your smartphone has partnered with American Idol to help viewers identify the songs being sung on air while unlocking extra content. This announcement came just after we all learned that Shazam passed the 200 million user mark.

So all of you Idol fans can snag the tunes you hear almost instantly and get connected to Idol social media and photo content for an even richer viewing experience -- for the remainder of the season.

Earlier this week, Shazam launched a new version of their popular application for iPhone and iPod Touch with a claim that it can identify songs in as little time as one second. 

The update also overhauled the UI for Shazam to make navigating and scrolling quicker and easier. 

The TV-to-app move is part of Shazam’s effort to appeal to television networks and advertisers looking to boost their second screen impact. This live broadcast partnership is the third major deal of its kind this year for Shazam.

The Shazam app is free of your mobile device at the iTunes App Store, Android Market, Amazon App Store and GetJar.

Last month, Shazam announced the next update it will release for the Andriod users. The upcoming update uses the new technology called Android Beam to help people more freely share and discover music.

In the past, Shazam was mostly limited to tapping the app to find out what the name of the song play is and quickly purchase the song, if desired, with a quick click.  According to Shazam, the update, that should come out in a few weeks, will allow Shazam users to tap phones to quickly share favorite songs or get tour dates for bands you have saved in recent searches.

The tap-to-share feature will also allow users that have been given coupon offers to share those and record snip-its from TV ads and programs that feature music they are curious about.

The update is also focused on speeding up the time it takes for the product to identify the song playing -- a feature that I take advantage of on road trips and competitive games of "name that tune."

These Android Beam connectivity features are really fun and exciting for music lovers that have been hungry for more interactivity with the music around them, but there are some disadvantages with being tied to the new Android Beam since currently, Android 4.0 (aka “Ice Cream Sandwich”) is only being used on 1% of Android devices, according to Google. 

But once the prevalence of Android 4.0 grows, Shazam users could be able to identify a song in a TV show or commercial in as little as a single second. 

Shazam has over 180 million users across 200 countries, and is adding new users at a rate of 1.5 million per week. The app is in the same space as another popular music identifier, SoundHound.

The ability to partner closer with advertising campaigns and TV programs is a great perk for Shazam and companies like it since this increases the interaction that people have with second screen technology.

Content producers want your eyes on as many screens as possible and want to show the people paying for their expertise to show deeper levels of action -- upgrades like this one that Shazam is adding can show that a commercial is powerful enough to make you Shazam and possibly buy a song or get a coupon. And that is music to many advertisers ears. 

Shazam also received more user awareness when the creator was featured in a Super Bowl commercial by Best Buy that put a spotlight on creators of Silicon Valley tech.

In a 30-second spot, Best Buy introduced the football viewers to the people that brought us text messaging, the phone camera, video-sharing, text-to-speech, Square, Instagram, Words with Friends and Shazam.

In the commercial, Shazam's Avery Wang even stated in the longer ad that after working on the problem of creating audio recognition software for music, he "was coming to the conclusion that it wasn't possible" before he made a breakthrough.